Arts & The Curriculum

The University of Michigan Hosts First Arts & the Curriculum Symposium

ANN ARBOR— In September, the U-M’s Arts Initiative hosted the inaugural symposium for its Arts + the Curriculum program. Project awardees from the first round who presented at the symposium included: A Zine About “Students as Partners” (U-M Dearborn); “The Implementation of Forum Theatre to Engage in Difficult Conversations within the U-M Social Work Community” (U-M Ann Arbor); and 14 other projects.

Arts + the Curriculum promotes the integration of arts thinking in curricular development along with programs that enhance the connection between teaching and the arts at U-M.

The Arts Initiative supported a total of 16 projects from the 2022-23 academic year that expanded curricular development, research that explored the application of the arts in classrooms, or programs that enhanced the connection between teaching at U-M and the arts. Projects promoted integration of arts thinking, methodologies, or practices into student learning through teaching and learning, to promote arts in the classroom more widely across U-M. 

All awardees presented their project findings at a symposium hosted by the U-M Arts Initiative on September 20, 2023, previous grants announcements about this program include: the first round in Spring 2022 and the second round of proposals in Fall 2022.

The U-M Arts Initiative actively engages students in the arts as a meaningful way to build connections between academic and co-curricular experiences, and to support students in their diverse roles as creators, audience members, and leaders in the university’s vibrant arts community.

The symposium brought together the principal investigators (PIs) and project teams to publicly share what they achieved during the 2022-23 academic year, and how the focus on the arts in teaching and learning has affected their pedagogical practices. A summary of projects and the team’s findings are outlined below; visit the Arts + the Curriculum website for more information about the program.

A Zine About “Students as Partners” (PI Michael MacDonald, presentation by Maya Barak)

“A Zine About Students as Partners” is a participatory project extending beyond the classroom to showcase the collaborative work of students, faculty, and staff on the U-M Dearborn campus through the biannual publication of a zine. The Zine is run by and features content from students, faculty, and staff in academia and other creative mediums. 

This Zine project started two years ago with the goal of engaging the larger U-M community and promoting a “students as partners” philosophy. The Zine highlights collaborations and partnerships that already exist on campus, and encourages students, faculty, and staff to experiment with new and innovative models in education.

We wanted to make sure the Zine was a space for creativity, not a space where people were bound by the rules of a specific assignment, course, or discipline. One of the great things about the Arts Initiative is that we are a part of a community that really gets it,” said Maya Barak, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, “It was really amazing to see what others are working on [at the Symposium] and the interdisciplinary nature of the Initiative. It’s nice to be a part of a grant that appreciates our collective work.

We were grateful that the Arts & Curriculum grant reviewers saw a place for our project,” said Michael MacDonald, current editor and PI, “The zine genre itself is really fun to work in because there are no rules, so even though we feature a lot of to-the-point reflections on learning, we also have the freedom to question, critique, challenge, and play around with higher education.